Resources Minister Madeleine King was just interviewed on RN Breakfast about the Australian Energy Market Operator’s warning that parts of the country faces a gas shortage.
But speaking to RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas, Ms King said there was sufficient gas in the system to keep the heating on — particularly in Victoria and Canberra.
“We have secured gas to make sure it falls into the system,” she said.
“At the moment, there is a bit of a pipeline constraint, I won’t deny that of course … it’s just that it’s full.
“Everyone wants the gas really quickly, that is the thing about gas, it’s so flexible, you can turn it on and off, so recently, the pipeline was not full, people want gas for their heating, it becomes full very quickly.
“It is a gas pipeline that has only a limited amount of gas that can literally go through it … so that is the constraint.”
Ms King added that gas prices would likely rise, as is the case when there is higher demand, but the prices would not exceed the cap in place.
“As one would expect, when there is a high demand, prices do go up, but there remains a cap so they don’t go up into the stratospheric kind of pricing we saw when we came into government,” she said.
“It [gas prices] could go up, but it is limited, and importantly limited to make sure there is affordable gas for households and manufacturing.”
The ABC’s energy reporter Daniel Mercer covered this initial story last week, which you can read below: